Before my brother ended his life, he drove his car straight at my eldest sister, hurt her leg and then stepped off the thirtieth floor.

Lying in his own blood, he smiled cheerfully and talked to me, “Alfred, I’ll be waiting for you on the other side!”

I realized he chose death to escape this world.

Later that night, I prepared a birthday cake and sent a message about my departure to my family group chat.

As my second sister, a doctor, responded coldly, she sent only “1.”

My third sister, a global pop star, replied with a mocking voice message.

“If you’re going to die, then die already! You always envy Camden. If you die today, I’ll stream live and eat shit!”

My parents stayed silent, but they kept posting one photo after another of Camden celebrating his birthday at a world-class motorsport event.

Only my eldest CEO sister tried to keep herself from crying as she sent voice message after voice message.

“Alfred, you know where Gideon went, don’t you?!”

“Please, tell me…”

But I stayed silent and ate the cake by myself because I was about to see my real parents and sister.

——

After I finished the last bit of cake, I chose a suicide option inside the system.

[Host, do you really want to use this suicide option?]

[This kind of death will bring a lot of pain. I advise you to pick a different one.] The system’s flat voice reminded me.

I didn’t pay attention to it and pressed confirm.

Once I completed that, I finally checked my phone.

I noticed the family group chat was still blowing up with messages.

It was Camden’s eighteenth birthday and the Granger Family had given him a huge coming-of-age celebration.

My second sister, who worked as a doctor, pushed aside several surgeries and took the whole day off to keep him company.

My third sister, an international superstar, stopped her entire national concert tour just so she could sing him a birthday song.

Only my oldest sister, the CEO, had her leg snapped by Gideon and was lying in the hospital, sending voice messages heavy with regret.

“Alfred, please tell me where Gideon went?”

“I’m begging you…”

After hearing a few messages, I switched off my phone.

The rest of the cake, I tossed into the trash can and, following the system’s directions, walked toward the suicide spot.

St. Luke’s Medical Center.

Right as I reached the hospital entrance, my phone was ringing.

“Alfred, what did you say to Camden?!”

“Why did he swallow sleeping pills to end his life?!” My third sister’s loud scream shot through the phone and hit my ears hard.

Holding the phone without emotion, I tried to think back on how many times this had happened.

How many times had I been blamed, cornered? But I couldn’t remember.

It had happened so many times that I couldn’t recall.

“Is he dead?” Calmly, I asked, ending the call before more shouting could land on me.

Into the hospital, I walked alone, looking for a spot to rest, waiting for the system to tell me the suicide time.

Barely had I sat down when a slap struck across my face.

“Alfred, you have gone too far!” My second sister, wearing a white coat, showed clear anger in her eyes.

“I used to think you were just a little troublesome, but I never thought you carried such nasty thoughts!”

“Just like a rapist’s and a trafficker’s kid, you’re rotten all the way through!”

“Taken in by the Granger Family for eighteen years and you’re still nothing but bad from the start!”

“Kneel outside the emergency room and stay there until Camden wakes up safely!”

Yanking my arm, my second sister, Dakota, dragged me upward.

I fought against it, my head crashing into the wall and darkness swept over me.

As warm liquid ran from my forehead, Dakota let go of me. Her eyes showed shock and panic.

“Dakota, I have never harmed Camden!”

Wiping the blood from my forehead, I spoke in a calm voice. “I will not take blame for something I didn’t do!”

Frustration showed in Dakota’s eyes and a cold smile formed on her lips. “Didn’t you harm Camden?”

“Then why are you here at the hospital acting ashamed?”

“Don’t tell me you came to the hospital so late just to walk around?!”

“I came to the hospital to end my life,” I answered calmly, pressing my lips together.

The method to end my life I picked in the system was to block a medical clash.

Later tonight, a large medical dispute was about to happen here.

A man with a knife would end seven doctors and would kill himself.

One of the doctors was a woman who worked on many women’s sicknesses and cancers.

Earlier, she recommended reforming the speculum and producing medical-grade sanitary pads.

That made it much less likely for women to develop inflammation. In my world, my mother was running out of time due to uterine cancer.

So the system reached me.

By now, my task was done.

In my last moments, I wanted to help the women here as much as I could.

Yet, I never imagined the place would turn out to be the hospital where Dakota worked.

“Suicide?”

“Alfred, you switched tactics, trying to earn pity by talking about dying now?”

“Who pushed you into that?”

“You picked it up from your brother, who jumped off a building?”

“Listen to me! He was a lunatic! Same as you, a useless bastard!”

From a short distance away, Ophelia walked over, holding a news report about our brother’s death, raising her voice as she mocked.

“A construction worker commits suicide because he feels beneath the wealthy wife’s first love?”

“Alfred, take a look at these articles. Which one isn’t accurate?”

“You’re no different from Gideon, a low-class bastard!”

“You were swapped at birth and raised in our home for eighteen years, yet you still can’t compare to even one hair on Camden’s head!”

Once she finished talking, Ophelia darkened her expression as she stepped forward and yanked my hair.

“Alfred, come with me and apologize to Camden and I'll forgive you this time."

“Otherwise…”

“I’ll expose your real background and then not a single university in this country will accept you!”

“Alright.”

“What did you say?” Ophelia paused.

Shock crossed her face and her hand eased from my hair on its own.

“I told you that you wouldn’t get into any university. Do you understand what that means?”

What would it mean? No one knew it better than I do.

Three months before my college entrance exam, my mother was diagnosed with cancer.

My father and sister lied to me, claiming she went on a trip. But how could I be unaware?

My mother cared for me and loved our family.

She was the one who kept our family strong and supported us all.

She often liked to say, “This family will collapse if I’m gone!”

Every time, I would laugh and agree.

“Mom, then you have to stay till a hundred, or else this family will collapse.”

I recalled that day I secretly followed behind my father and sister to the hospital.

I saw my mother, her body reduced to skin and bones after chemotherapy.

Her face looked pale, yet she held on to my father’s hand and kept asking him the same questions.

“Alfred hasn’t figured it out, right?”

“Is he doing well at school?”

“I can’t let Alfred’s college entrance exam be affected. Our boy is going to be a scientist!”

That day, I ran out of the hospital and cried by the river for three straight hours.

I made a choice. I planned to quit school so I could stay with my mother through everything.

I didn’t want to lose a single moment with her.

So, not being able to attend university was something I understood more than anyone.

“Alfred, are you out of your mind?!”

“Didn’t you love the physics department at Atmore University the most?”

Dakota stared at me in shock.

Shaking my head, I was about to respond. From a distance, a nurse ran over in a hurry.

“Dr. Granger, something serious has happened!”

“Your brother woke up and is having a depressive episode; he is going to jump from the building!”

Camden’s depression always started at very specific moments.

I earned first place in the city’s mock exam and the school planned to praise me.

He had a depressive episode.

I came down with a fever of forty degrees Celsius and barely managed to call home.

He had a depressive episode then, too.

This time, nothing about it caught me off guard.

Inside the ward, he sat beside the window with a fruit knife in his hand.

“Mom and Dad, Dakota, Ophelia, I’m terrified. I dreamt they hurt me again.”

“They forced me to eat dog food and they mistreated me every single day…”

“Why didn’t you come find me sooner?!” Tears fell down his cheeks.

Camden’s helpless crying touched everyone watching.

His father, Dalton, an experienced businessman, had reddened eyes as he tried to soothe him.

“Camden, lower the knife and come to Daddy!”

“You’re home now! Daddy will give you anything you ask for!” His wealthy mother broke down in tears.

“Camden, you’re Mommy’s dear child!”

“Mommy is begging you, please come back down!”

Camden mumbled to himself as the fruit knife moved across his wrist.

“But my brother says he doesn’t like me. He says I don’t deserve to be Mommy and Daddy’s kid, I don’t deserve to stay in this family…”

“Then I might as well die!” Camden shouted, his eyes full of hurt as he stared straight at me.

“Alfred, you truly said that to Camden?!”

“Who gave you the courage?!” Ophelia hit me across the face, yanked my hair and dragged me toward Camden.

“Camden, don’t trust what Alfred said! You are the rightful son in this family!”

“He’s only pretending!”

“That’s right! Alfred isn’t our son, Camden, you are!” Juliette cried out, cutting in quickly.

Camden’s tears finally stopped falling. He lowered the knife and slowly stepped down from the window.

“Camden, be good, hand the knife to Dakota. Don’t hurt yourself.”

Dakota softly tried to comfort Camden as she reached for the knife in his hand.

But out of nowhere, Camden shouted. The knife swung hard in my direction.

A sharp knife sliced from my forehead down to the corner of my mouth.

The burning pain brought me straight back to my second year of high school.

I had fallen during a basketball game and cut my face. My mother rushed to the school with worry in her eyes, gently soothing me.

“It doesn’t hurt, sweetheart, it doesn’t hurt…”

My mother’s soft voice still seemed to echo in my mind.

I held my face and dropped to the ground.

“Ah! I didn’t mean to!”

“Brother, I’m sorry, I lost control…”

Camden cried in distress, then fainted.

Inside the ward, everyone panicked and hurried out with him.

I stayed on the cold floor, my wound throbbing.

“Mom…” I whispered without thinking, tears running down my cheeks.

My tears made the wound burn even harder.

I felt myself lose control and more tears kept running down.

When I first arrived in this life, I had been a tiny newborn.

I had moved carefully and quietly, with my whole mind set on finishing one task, to heal my mother’s illness.

But later on, the Granger Family treated me better and better.

I slowly opened my heart to them, secretly happy, thinking I had gained care from two homes.

But the truth showed me that family affection could appear in many ways.

After lying there for a short while, I set my sadness aside, covered my face and pushed myself up.